Kathryn Jacobs's new book In Transit will be published next year (2011) from David Roberts Books. I also have two chapbooks now: Signs of Our Time (Pudding House Press 2009), and Advice Column (Finishing Line Press, 2008). I have a hundred-plus poems at a variety of journals, over a dozen articles, and a scholarly book on medieval and renaissance marriage contracts.
Summer 2010
Table of Contents - Vol. VI, No. 2
Kathryn Jacobs
It hit me one day that I don’t exist.
The nitpickers among you might reply
that I was non-existent last year, too,
and looked at that way, nothing’s really changed.
But in those days I didn’t know it yet.
It’s oddly liberating. Think of it:
no matter what goes wrong, it’s not my fault
(if I’d just caught on sooner...). And forget
insurance, taxes -- I fell off the list.
Or, say I want to swim? The rest of you
are thrown out, grumbling, every time that guy
yells lightning. But I laugh. It felt so strange
at first, this not existing. But you’re free.
It’s scary: rules just don’t apply to me....
© Kathryn Jacobs
